Democracy Now! (4/4/18) Schools across Oklahoma are closed today for a third day as teachers continue their strike demanding more funding for education and increased pay. Oklahoma’s public education budget has been slashed more than any other state since the start of the recession in 2008, and its teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation. Scores of teachers are planning to begin a 123-mile protest march today from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, thousands of teachers continue to protest in Kentucky, demanding a reversal to a provision in a recently passed bill about sewage treatment that gutted their…

  Madison, WI (April 4, 2018) – On Tuesday, April 3rd, Wisconsin residents in nine communities voted to amend the U.S. Constitution to clarify that only human beings should have inalienable human rights and money is not the same thing as free speech. All referenda passed with overwhelming majorities: Green County (78%), St. Croix County (77%), the cities of La Crosse (88%), Marshfield (81%), Sun Prairie (83%), Rice Lake (81%), the villages of McFarland (79%) and Wittenberg (83%), and the town of Sand Creek (77%) in Dunn County. That brings the total to 129 Wisconsin communities that have called for…

  Democracy Now! (3/30/18) On Wednesday, President Trump fired Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin and said he’d replace him with White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy. Dr. Jackson has no experience running a large agency. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the federal government’s second-largest department, with 360,000 employees. Shulkin had been facing criticism for various ethics violations, including using taxpayer money to pay for his wife’s airfare during a trip to Europe last summer. But Shulkin says he’s actually being ousted because of his opposition to privatizing the VA, which runs 1,700…

Indivisible (3/31/18) Dear Indivisibles, Welcome to week 2 of recess. Your members of Congress (MoCs) have been in-district for the past week, and yet an alarming number of elected officials have been dodging your calls for open and accessible town halls. So what’s going on? MoCs have dodged town halls for who knows how long. But since Indivisibles like you started showing up at town halls in February 2017, you have them shaking in their boots because they know that you’re more prepared than ever and you’ll hold them accountable. You show up to their events, with the tough questions ready,…

The rising tide of national protest and opposition has brought forth a lot of creative humor, satire and other forms of protest. Some of that is to be found on protest signs created by fellow citizens speaking truth to power. The Commoner Call will feature some of that handheld wisdom in a new original cartoon feature we are calling “You Can’t Say That! Oh, Yes I Can!”. The sign above was shared with me by a reader and that was the beginning of the idea for the new feature. If you see a particularly good protest sign send it along for…

By Chelsey B. Coombs & Kathleen Caulderwood VICE News (3/28/18) Lyndsey Stuart is a history and leadership teacher at Bartlesville High School in Oklahoma. She’s been teaching for 10 years. And she’s never had a raise. “I don’t think any teacher goes into the profession and thinks, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to be a millionaire,’’’ Stuart said. “But we also don’t think that we’re going to be that close to poverty.” Earlier this month, the state teachers union, the Oklahoma Education Association, called for teachers to walk out of their classrooms on April 2, the day after the state Legislature is required to…

By Jon Collins Minnesota Public Radio (3/30/18) When supporters rolled out what they called “penny-a-pill” legislation last month, they described it as a bipartisan effort to raise needed money to combat the opioid overdose epidemic that claimed hundreds of lives in Minnesota last year. But the legislation faces an uncertain future after strong opposition from pharmaceutical companies and some business interests. The legislation, as originally proposed, would charge pharmaceutical companies a fee for every opioid painkiller they sell. That would raise an estimated $20 million in continued funding for abuse prevention efforts, wider access to the overdose medication naloxone and more resources for treatment. But the…

  By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (3/27/18) A week after actress and political activist Cynthia Nixon launched her campaign as a progressive challenger to New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the NYC native headed to the state capitol to talk corruption, inequality, and education. Speaking on Monday about Cuomo’s 2010 campaign promise promise (pdf) to “Clean Up Albany,” Nixon said, “As most New Yorkers would tell you, he’s cleaned up Albany about as well as Donald Trump has drained the swamp.” She not only attacked the governor’s lack of action on this front, but also denounced campaign donations and how powerful special interests influence…

  By David Rothkopf CNN (3/23/18) (CNN) News outlets have reported that President Donald Trump has decided to replace his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster. Trump was supposedly waiting to announce the decision until he could find a good next posting for McMaster, who remains an active-duty Army general. The rationale was that this would be more dignified for McMaster. But of course, leaking the news of his imminent firing had the opposite effect. And it not only humiliated the general, it also undermined the effectiveness of the entire US national security apparatus at an extremely sensitive time when we face complex challenges involving North Korea,…